Semi-Auto GPIB Tester

What this software is

• A tool to graphically send basic GPIB commands such as ibwrt, ibrd, ibrsp, ibclr etc.
• A semi automatic GPIB command sequencer. Loading/saving sequences is provided as a feature.

What this software isn't

• A fully automatic tester; not flow control mechanisms are provided so the user must split complicated flows into smaller sequences that it executes in an arbitrary order.

Supported platforms

• Windows 7/10 - using NI488.2 GPIB driver
• Linux Ubuntu 16.10 - using linux-gpib driver

Dependencies

Source code dialect is Python 3 and the dependencies are as listed below. For python packages, make sure to install using pip3 if pip does not point to pip3 by default.

Common

• Qt5
• pyvisa
• PyQt5
• configparser

Linux

• pyvisa-py (custom)
• linux-gpib (see below installation instructions)

Windows

• pyinstaller (Optional; only used to build the Windows standalone executable)
• WiX toolset (Optional; only used to build the Windows installer)

linux-gpib installation guide

Performed on Ubuntu 16.10 with linux kernel 4.8.0-30-generic.

1. wget https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/linux-gpib/linux-gpib%20for%203.x.x%20and%202.6.x%20kernels/4.0.3/linux-gpib-4.0.3.tar.gz
2. tar -xvf linux-gpib-4.0.3.tar.gz
3. Ubuntu still likes python2 and we want python3 bindings and installation destination from linux-gpib. Temporarily point python to python3 by sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python
4. cd linux-gpib-4.0.3/
5. ./configure
6. make
7. sudo make install
8. Undo the python->python3 link using sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/python
9. The linux-gpib installer puts the linux-gpib.so library in a location that cannot be found by pyvisa. Make a symlink as sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libgpib.so.0 /usr/lib/libgpib.so.0
10. Install pyvisa and pyvisa-py using pip3 install pyvisa pyvisa-py
11. Test if pyvisa sees the GPIB backend by executing python3 -m visa info. It should contain the following line:

GPIB INSTR: Available via Linux GPIB (b'4.0.3')

10. Add current user to group gpib: sudo usermod -a -G gpib $(whoami)
11. Example /etc/gpib.conf provided below, call sudo gpib_config when you connect the USB-GPIB-HS.

    interface {
            minor = 0       /* board index, minor = 0 uses /dev/gpib0, minor = 1 uses /dev/gpib1, etc. */
            board_type = "ni_usb_b" /* type of interface board being used */
            name = "gpibprobe"      /* optional name, allows you to get a board descriptor using ibfind() */
            pad = 1 /* primary address of interface             */
            sad = 0 /* secondary address of interface           */
            timeout = T3s   /* timeout for commands */
    
            eos = 0x0a      /* EOS Byte, 0xa is newline and 0xd is carriage return */
            set-reos = yes  /* Terminate read if EOS */
            set-bin = no    /* Compare EOS 8-bit */
            set-xeos = no   /* Assert EOI whenever EOS byte is sent */
            set-eot = yes   /* Assert EOI with last byte on writes */
    
            /* settings for boards that lack plug-n-play capability */
            base = 0        /* Base io ADDRESS                  */
            irq  = 0        /* Interrupt request level */
            dma  = 0        /* DMA channel (zero disables)      */
    
            master = yes    /* interface board is system controller */
    }
    
    device {
            minor = 0
            name = "prober"
            timeout=T3s
            pad = 5
            sad = 0
    }
    

12. $ lsmod | grep ni should now contain these 2 modules.

    ni_usb_gpib            36864  0
    gpib_common            40960  1 ni_usb_gpib